My brush with fame

If you can’t see a film at least you can be in the personal presence of a great movie artist. Accidentally, that is. I’m in England and a week ago was travelling by train back to London from Liverpool. The train had well departed the Liverpool station – perhaps half the way to London – and going at substantial speed, when two women came into first class where I was sitting (the perks of a BritRail pass). Their arrival seemed so out of place that I joked, “How did you guys get on the train – jump on it moving at full speed?” And one of them had a boxy suitcase, upon which seeing I quipped, “Wow, that’s something straight out of a 1940s movie about a transatlantic voyage.” My jokes, lame or not, aside, this woman smiled, perhaps indulgently, at me. She was very good looking and seemed to have a sheen about her. She almost looked like…… She slid into her seat opposite me but by the window. Meanwhile, a “mate” who I’d struck up a conversation with across the aisle, at one point turned to our female companion and said, “Before you go to sleep, I just wanted to say, I really enjoyed you in The Crown.” She plays Princess Margaret. Okaaay….is this confirming who I thought this woman might be? And then my friend types something out on his phone and shows it to me. “Don’t say anything but that’s Helena Bonham Carter.” Suspicion confirmed! So, for the rest of the trip to London’s Euston Station here was one of the world’s foremost actresses nestled in her seat sitting across from me, sometimes perusing her phone or trying to get some shuteye. I thought I heard from time-to-time softy purring sounds. She did adjust her foot when I grabbed my cellphone cord after it became unattached (not that she did it). I don’t know who her companion – an older woman – was but she sat separately down the aisle. But why was HBC on this very train? Simple. Earlier, when in Liverpool, I happened to, yes, take a Beatles tour. As our bus passed a major arena people in costume were pouring out of the local Comic Con. The tour guide didn’t know if anyone famous was attending. One the passengers piped up, “Helena Bonham Carter is.” “She’s pretty famous,” quipped the guide.

Interestingly, this being England, so many major locations have been film settings. This includes King’s Cross train station, where you can see on the concourse floor star stickers with the names of famous films shot there from the 1930s to present. These include Harry Potter, Friday the Thirteenth, The Imitation Game, Alfie, all the way back to Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps ….. Also, at St. Bartholomew the Great parish, London’s oldest dating from the 12th century - and which offers wonderful free lunchtime classical concerts – many movies had scenes shot there. These include Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sherlock Holmes, The Last Knight and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

The Great Escaper and escape into WIFF

The Great Escaper (Oliver Parker) is a charming film that befits the end-of-careers of both Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson. Set in a remote British town it tells the story of Bernie Jordan, a WW II vet who desperately wanted to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France. He misses the official tour and schemes his way, by himself, aboard a ferry, to Normandy, where he’s of course befriended by his comrades who’d arrived before him. Meanwhile, wife Rene (Jackson) remains coyly mum at the assisted living facility, while staff are gripped with worry about where Bernie disappeared to. This picture is the perfect vehicle for both these stellar talents. Caine didn’t want to play the role – he’d been musing retirement for some time and finally announced it the other day - but after a few script readings couldn’t resist. He’s perfect for the twinkly eyed irascible veteran. And Jackson – you won’t recognize here she’s aged so much – also is in the role of his wife. Fortunately or unfortunately, her real life aged physical presence – she died earlier this year – fits exactly the persona of an old housebound woman, weak physically but wise enough to josh the often-befuddled staff. This film is based on a true story, where Jordan ended up becoming a British media hero, in addition of course to being a WW II one….I saw it at the Kino cinema (photo) in Rye (one time home of author Henry James) on England’s southeast coast. This small cinema in an ancient building featuring an outdoor patio with two floor café, where you could nurse away a beer or glass of wine efore the film on a pleasant early autumn afternoon.

Happy to see the announcement of Windsor International Film Festival’s (WIFF) 19^th lineup, with more films than ever – 186 features and 38 shorts – running Oct. 26 – Nov 5. As always, there’s a strong lineup of flicks screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which always leads me to tell people, “Why go to Toronto when you can see some of the best two months later here?” Regardless, WIFF's proved a more than solid event. Forty-seven movies will be screened before released commercially. The festival continues to grow and even obtain gravitas, this year announcing the first ever $25,000 award to the best of 10 Canadian films, that will be screened on the event's first weekend. Too bad I’ll have to miss the fest as I’m in Europe. But the event truly rocks. And as someone who has attended several film festivals in Canada and the United States, WIFF has grown to be among the best, not just in breathed of selections but planning and organization. Here's to WIFF! And I’ll be sure to attend next year’s 20^th.

Notes from Britain

Want to see a film and have a beer while at it in, in Britain? It will cost you. In Canterbury – a charming city just as you might expect, full of half-timbered Medieval buildings – I stumbled upon a little theater run by the British Curzon cinema chain. Curzon, as I've discovered, can play a lot of mainstream flicks, but this small theatre was a through-and-through arthouse. It had a great little lounge, serving up coffee, beer and wine, even pizza, and intimate screening rooms. It was a Sunday afternoon and I opted for The Lesson (Alice Troughton) with Julie Delpy, Richard E. Grant and Daryl McCormack. The film is a quiet Hitchcockian thriller set in a mansion in the bucolic English countryside. Delpy plays an aging matriarch and art curator, married to a high strung “Great Novelist” type (Grant), whose lives become mediated by an aspiring writer (McCormack). It’s a slow burn and captive enough though I had some difficulties with the presumption of the plot – did McCormack really have to be the fulcrum between Grant and Delpy’s characters? But my point is that it cost me a grand total of $33.75 (CAD) for one beer and one ticket to the film. It’s expensive in the UK! 

In London, I wanted to see the film Fair Play (Chloe Domont) “set in the cutthroat world of high finance” and an “erotic thriller.” Its subtitle is “Competition is Close.” It’s screening at, among other places, the Regent Street Cinema, when I walked by it last weekend. Great, I’ll go next week. Then I saw it opens on Netflix Oct. 13. (It was even advertised this way at the theatre.). My question: why go to a movie and pay relatively big bucks when I can wait a week and see the same thing online?

The London Film Festival kicked off last night – with gala opening Saltburn (Emerald Fennell), which got five stars in today’s Telegraph - and runs till Oct. 15. The festival looks to have a great line-up but I came upon it late and virtually all films have long been sold out. Maybe next year, if I come back to London, I'll be aware and book earlier. The festival’s centerpiece venue is the British Film Institute (BFI) (photo) on the Southbank, sandwiched between the National Theatre – where some of Britian’s greatest playwrights’ works are performed – and Royal Festival Hall, a famed orchestra space. This is the most spectacular building devoted to film I’ve ever been in. Besides having several screening rooms, there is a Mediatheque, where the public can relax in numerous deep cushioned pods and view 95,000 titles from the BFI’s archives. There's a film library. There’s also a spacious café and a sprawling bar. It’s a space made in film heaven.